★★½ The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

[Gino: 2.5]

Gino says: 'This movie, all the rage in 2008, had a feel to it that convinces me that countless people labored on it in a most dedicated fashion. It is totally polished from start to finish, and impressive.

It involves the story of a guy who is born as an old man, lives life backwards, and dies as a baby. Because this changes his relationships with everyone else who is aging in the normal direction, I think it is supposed to make us think more about life, the way we spend our time, and death. But the more I thought about it, there is no advantage to this as a device for provoking such thoughts. Therefore, for me, what I was left with was a very professional film about an outlandish story that should have been more disruptive to the people involved and society as a whole, didn't make me think much, and was kinda a downer to boot.

In this sense, something like "Forest Gump" had a similar psuedo-reality feel too it but was a lot more entertaining. Or if you want to see a good movie about death, maybe watch something like "The Barbarian Invasions".'